


the queen is dead

by dasedandconfuzed



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-09 20:32:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8910979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dasedandconfuzed/pseuds/dasedandconfuzed
Summary: [Viktor isn't the first person Yuuri saved.]If anyone would have told 15 year old Okukawa Minako that her greatest achievement wouldn’t be a Prix Benois, she would have punched them.





	1. the only way out is through

 

~*~

 

Minako is born during a freak snow storm in the beginning of spring.

 

“It never snows here,” her mother would explain, braiding her hair, “but then it did and you came kicking and screaming into the world.”

 

She was too young to understand she was first a myth before she was a person. 

 

~*~

 

“Minako has behavioral issues,” her school teacher complains to her parents. “She’s very smart, but I don’t think she’s being challenged.” 

 

Minako slumps further into her chair. She glances outside at the children running in the playground. There’s an endless thrumming in her limbs, she wants to run and jump and scream, anything to expend this inexhaustible reserve.

 

Her father sighs, “are you suggesting she try a different class?”

 

Minako perks for a moment, does her best to look mature but she sees her reflection in her father’s eyes. She looks tiny in her seat, closer to 7 than 9. You would never make friends there, his eyes read. It doesn’t matter, she doesn’t have friends now.

 

“No—” Minako falls back into her seat. “But have you considered something outside of school?” The teacher looks Minako up and down, “Ballet, perhaps?”

 

Her father relaxes, smiles. “Would you like that Mina-chan? Ballet?”

 

She nods, anything to go outside, and they leave.

 

~*~

 

Absolutely no one expects she would be good at ballet.  

 

~*~

 

“Huh.” The instructor’s mouth hinges open. All the other girls are gripping the barre, nervously sneaking peaks at her. She wasn’t supposed to do that, but the teacher had her back turned and Minako had been so bored.

 

“Huh,” the instructor says, “can you do that again?”

 

Minako grins, lifts a thin shoulder— _see what I can do_ —and then redoes the footwork and twirls. She leaps into the air—it’s less of a fumble this time—and floats to the ground. 

 

“Girls,” the instructor calls out, “class is dismissed five minutes early.” She grabs Minako by the shoulder, pulling her back to the barre, “No, Minako-kun, you stay.”

 

The older woman waits a few moments after the last girl walks away before turning back to Minako, who does nothing more than smile with all her teeth. “Who taught you that?” she asks. 

 

“No one,” Minako responds. 

 

The instructor raises an eyebrow. “I saw it on the T.V.,” Minako says, “and I copied it.”

 

The older woman paces, pulls her mother away when she comes to collect her daughter, and whispers frantically with her. 

 

~*~

 

It’s decided instantaneously—Minako will have private dance lessons Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and will study in an advanced class in Kyushu on weekends. It's a lot, but her classes bore her and she doesn't have friends.

 

“Are you sure?” her mother asks on their long walk home. "Is this really what you want?"

 

Minako squeezes her mother’s hand tight, swings it up and down. The sun is setting, setting the sky ablaze. It makes Hasetsu look beautiful, more like the the Hasetsu of the tourism photos than the Hasetsu of real life. “Yes,” she nods, eyes fixated on that dying light, “I want it more than anything.”

 

~*~

 

At twelve-years old, Minako is the youngest of the Kyushu class. 

 

She’s shorter than everyone else and her mother waits outside with a book every time, because there was no way she would allow Minako to take the train by herself. All together, Minako looks more like a child compared to all the other girls. But there’s a mysterious glamour to it all—“I have ballet class in Kyushu,” she informs her awestruck classmates, “they think I have talent, that I can go far.”

 

It’s true. She is the youngest of the Kyushu class and she is the most talented.

 

She still doesn't have friends.

 

~*~

 

A new girl joins her ballet class. She is one year older and has eyes darker than any night sky. “May I?” she asks, pointing to the empty spot next to Minako. Her hair is thick, raven black and curling, loose strands falling out of her bun. 

 

Minako nods, points to the hair, “You need to fix your bun, Yoshida-sensei won’t be happy.”

 

The girl rolls her eyes. “It’s too much effort for a class,” she explains, “she won’t care when she sees me dance. My name is Yamamoto Nadeshiko.”

 

“Okukawa Minako.”

 

~*~

 

“Minako, seriously?”

 

She shrugs.

 

“It’s fitting.”

 

“Did they think you would be pretty?”

 

“Apparently my birth was something special.”

 

~*~

 

Minako is right, Yoshida-sensei isn’t happy about the new girl’s hair.

 

Nadeshiko is also right, Yoshida-sensei doesn’t care when the girl dances.

 

~*~

 

In a few days, Minako is allowed to call Nadeshiko Nade-chan, and has surrendered her family nickname, Mina-chan, in return. 

 

They see each other every weekend for class, and after needling, have dinner together after. When her mother gives her permission, Minako spends entire weekends in Nade-chan’s house. It's huge and empty, but they spend hours filling the space with noise, leaping across the immaculate hallways, spinning until they collapse, breathless against the imported rugs. At night, they hunch in their blankets over magazines and pictures.

 

“I’ve started learning French,” Nade-chan announces one night, “the best school is in Paris. _On dois préparer_.”

 

English is clumsy in Minako’s mouth, but she begins studying French for Nade-chan, says to her a week later, “ _Nous irons ensemble.”_

 

~*~

 

A year later, Nade-chan kisses Minako in the studio, teasing, “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

 

Minako blushes, then surges forward, kissing Nade-chan until her mouth gasps open. 

 

~*~

 

Things go terribly wrong. Puberty strikes Nade: overnight she begins to grow incorrectly. Her hips swell, her chest, too, but she doesn’t grow any taller. She panics, dyes all her leotards black and grows more obsessed with her caloric intake, weighing herself each day, but the number keeps growing. Before class, she instructs Minako to wait outside the bathroom while she binds up her chest. She wears a cardigan, bright orange and gathered tightly over her too-big chest. She refuses—fights tooth and nail—to keep it on, even in the wet summer heat.

 

Minako comforts her the best she can, but she looks at her girlfriend and that terrible thought comes to mind _This is not the body of a dancer._  

 

~*~

 

When Minako is fifteen, she finally meets the minimum age requirement for the Prix Lausanne.

 

“I’m going,” she declares to her parents, her teachers. “I already have the money.”

 

Yoshida-sensei’s face is blank. “How can you pay for a flight to Switzerland?”

 

Minako shrugs, “I’ve saved.”

 

They are silent. _I started saving when I began to out-dance you_ , Minako angrily thinks, that bitter memory rising to mind. 

 

She and Nade had flung themselves into an empty office, panting and desperate. Minako tried to pull Nade's leotard away, had accidentally snapped it across her fingers, and Nade had laughed and laughed. Minako heard the footsteps first, had fallen silent and still, covering Nade's mouth on reflex.

 

"Is this really that bad?" That was her mother's voice. 

 

“I don’t know what I can do,” Yoshida had admitted to her parents. 

 

Nade’s eyes were so wide, but Minako had begun toeing Nade’s thrown cardigan away from the slim triangle of light from the hallway.

 

“There’s nothing left I can teach Minako.”

 

The laughter died in Nade’s eyes. 

 

_I was right, you couldn’t even tell me as you kept draining my parents of their money._

 

“We don’t—we’ve already exhausted Hasetsu of its talent.”

 

 _Please_ , Minako thought, _I_ am _Hasetsu’s talent._

 

“She has to go abroad.”

 

“We don’t have that kind of money.”

 

“There are scholarships.”

 

The voices fell away. 

 

Minako had waited patiently at dinner, but no one spoke to her of the scholarships. She had to go through Nade’s brochures to find them, had nearly torn them to shreds from her fury. "It's fine," Nade had soothed, "you don't even need practice—we'll make the deadline." They had skipped a weekend class to complete Minako’s application, had begged a university student to help them fill out the English forms. 

 

“What happens if you’re chosen?” Nade had asked.

 

Minako had looked away. “They’ve never chosen anyone from Japan.” She had quit her dance classes in Hasetsu, told her parents she wanted to go to a university abroad. If they wouldn’t use that money to pay for her flight, she had filled in that empty time as a host in a hot springs.

 

“And if you win?”

 

Minako snaps out of the memory. She looks her parents in the eyes and repeats the same lie: “I don’t know if I can win.”

 

~*~

 

She wins.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

~*~

 

She goes to London.

 

It’s decided for her. She scored the highest out of all the other winners, she’s accepted into The Royal Ballet School. In the long-run, it's better. The Royal Ballet is more prestigious than the French option and it's more imperative that she improve her English. 

 

But as Nade hugs her, all the logic flies out of Minako’s head. The thought of studying in France without Nade is nauseating.  _I wouldn’t be here without you,_ she presses a kiss into Nade’s curling hair, _I’m sorry it wasn’t you._

 

“Tu me manques.”

 

~*~

 

London is grey and drab. It’s not haunted by rain so much as it is by perpetual indecisiveness. The first few days Minako walked through the streets, she had observed the sky thunder and howl before brightening with sunshine and then beginning the cycle all over again in a matter of minutes. 

 

 _The city is bursting with life_ , she summarizes on a postcard.

 

The Royal Ballet School, with its bright colors and rich, storied art, is not.

 

~*~

 

She had always known that ballet was a type of art resistant against change. She had grown to love it in spite of that, a dedication in no small part thanks to her ballet teacher in Kyushu, who had let Nade’s hair and Minako run wild.

 

The British are different.

 

There is strict order to her life. Wake, stretch, eat, class, eat, stretch, class, more class, and even more classes layered on because of her “insufficient English”. Every aspect of her life is monitored by and suspect to the school’s army of nutritionists, doctors, dancers, and physiologists. 

 

She is lumped in a group and they move in perfect harmony, from class to class to class.  _We are a corps,_ she realizes one day, horrified.  _Corps or corpse?_

 

It will not do, she is meant to be a star. 

 

~*~

 

Bill is a member of The Royal Ballet. 

 

The other students are in awe when he arrives as a surprise guest, but Minako hangs in the back. _He’s a corps member_ , she whispers to no one, _we’ll be training_ with _them in half a year._ But for reasons she cannot guess at, everyone is enraptured with Bill and his charming smiles and dry humor.

 

He winds through the class, critiquing students who eagerly nod at the slightest praise, even though they are all a year away from his vaunted position. Halfway through the class, he finally arrives at her spot on the barré. “Minako Okukawa,” he pronounces her name wrong, “I’ve heard of you.” 

 

“Yeah?” Minako tries to drawl out the syllable like an American film star.

 

Bill doesn't smile, instead he corrects her form. His hand is warm against the small of her back. It’s in dizzying contrast to the cold alarm that runs through her. He is forcing her leg to extend, up and up, levering her spine into a nauseating arc. All of Minako’s stage training is put to use keeping the fear off her face. 

 

When he releases her, she’s breathing harshly. 

 

“I thought you could do better,” he says.

 

~*~

 

After two weeks of his instruction, Bill asks her to a cafe. Her roommates had giggled, but Minako knew this wasn’t the makings of a grand romance—Bill only observed her the way a scientist would a test subject. _How does she work?_ she could read in his eyes each class.

 

He had, surprisingly, maneuvered her away from the small shops and cafes of Covent Garden. Instead, they had descended into the underground and reemerged in a part of the city Minako couldn’t place.

 

They sit against the window and Minako watches the outside world as they wait for their drinks. Bill says nothing, is instead exhaling rings of smoke. _I want to learn how to do that,_ Minako thinks. “I asked you here," he explains when their drinks arrive, "because you’re better than them. It’s frightening, really. You’re even better than the last _Lausanne_ kid.”

 

Minako frowns, “Of course I am.”

 

Bill raises an eyebrow.

 

“What?” Minako leans against the table, palming her chin, “I heard he’s rich—” Bill is looking at her amusedly and Minako flushes, trying to remember the correct order of English grammar—subject, verb, object, nothing more complicated or it'll come out wrong. “—his mother is a dancer? She is…” She trails off, unable to remember the correct word for those people who had watched her dance on that Swiss stage.

 

“A judge,” Bill adds, smirking. “You should work on your English. It’d help you more.”

 

Minako sniffs. 

 

~*~

 

Bill finds her amusing. It is his recurring explanation for their not-quite-a-friendship friendship, but Minako suspects that he’d already isolated every one else in the company—why else would someone in the corps willingly hang out with a student? And under the pretense of “English lessons”, too. 

 

But her English was crap and her instructors were insistent on beating out any sense of vitality of individuality in her dancing. So she let herself be dragged through London. Bill, entirely thrilled with the prospect of corrupting a student dutifully teaches her how to blow smoke rings, to drink beer, and dance sloppily in abandoned warehouses with university students and the working class. 

 

"We don't get your type here," a musician noted. There was interest sparking in his eyes as Minako exhaled rings of smoke.

 

"What's my type?"

 

"Y'know, ballerinas, aren't you afraid of all the calories in beer?"

 

 _Hundreds_ , Minako thinks,  _why do you think I smoke?_

 

She doesn't say that, though, her English is subpar, she's only witty in Japanese. And he was right. All of it was rather unbecoming for a ballerina, not to mention strictly forbidden, but Minako liked living outside her skin. 

 

~*~

 

Sometimes, Minako would bring along her roommates (friends?), but they never established themselves as permanent faces in those pulsing crowds. Usually the fear of expulsion kept her roommates from continually breaking curfew with her. Though, some of her roommates didn’t understand the nightlife _at all._

 

“What is this?” Rose shrieks, seeing a crowd gathered around breakdancers, “Why do people like this?”

 

Minako chugs the rest of her beer and screams the loudest when the music pauses. “Of course you don’t,” she says, “you’ll never understand anything that requires you use your mind.”

 

Rose looks at her oddly and Minako realizes she spoke in Japanese. It was for the better, Rose was a friend and happy within the Royal Ballet’s cage.

 

~*~

 

When Bill’s absentee mother (“Hélène,” he corrected) flies in unannounced from Paris, Minako finds herself pressed into a too-expensive dress for a too-expensive meal. 

 

“Is this really necessary?” Minako asks, her fingers caught in the string of pearls wrapped around her neck. 

 

“For Hélène? _Absolumment!_ ” Bill finishes knotting the silk ribbon and smiles at her reflection. “If we don’t look our best, she’ll blame my father who’ll blame me.”

 

But Minako pales when she sees the well-coiffed woman, and Bill’s shoulders shook with laughter.

 

“Minako Okukawa,” Hélène pronounces carefully, with the slightest touch of a French accent that Minako still remembered from a year ago, “I remember your audition—I didn’t realize you were the same Minako my William was so taken with.”

 

_Fuck._

 

When she turns to talk with the restaurant’s owner, Minako apologizes, “I didn’t realize.”

 

 _William_  smirks, “Don’t worry about it.”

 

~*~

 

When Minako ends the year, she is offered a place at The Royal Ballet _corps_. 

 

It’s all terribly expected. There was no denying she was the best student and her _prix de lausanne_ awarded her a myth that appealed to the old, terribly British company director.

 

“You understand the British way,” he praises after seeing her audition, “more than the British do.”

 

There’s a tone in surprise there, as if Minako could have succeeded any other way in the rigid Royal Ballet School, but she keeps her scorn locked away. “Of course,” she simpers, mimicking Bill’s way with sponsors, “is there any other?”

 

It’s the correct answer. 

 

~*~

 

Hélène whirls into Bill’s life unexpectedly in the summer. Regaled with Minako’s recent success, she orders the most expensive wine in the restaurant. Bill pinches the little flesh of her thigh to keep her from asking about the price. 

 

“It’s no surprise, my dear,” Hélène comments over a glass of wine, “how could they call themselves civilized if they let you return to Japan?” 

 

Bill pinches her again.

 

As a gift, Hélène surprises them with tickets to a performance by the touring Bolshoi Ballet. Minako accepts them without the fanfare of denial, a definite faux pas, but she deserves it for suffering the Japan comment. Two weeks later, Minako is in a borrowed dress, waiting in the wings for the most popular show in the Western hemisphere to open its doors.

 

“It’s exciting.” She spins a pirouette, catching the eye of a few patrons. _I’ll be dancing here every day_ , she thinks, smiling in the direction of a wealthy couple. _In a few years, you’ll be waiting on me._ “Do you think we can talk to them after?”

 

Bill smiles indulgently, “To the Russian Commies? _Da_.” 

 

Minako throws him a venomous glare before grabbing his program. “They can’t just keep them cooped up backstage. _Everyone_ will want their autograph. What if _I_ just want an autograph?”

 

He raises an eyebrow. “An autograph?” he repeats with disbelief. Minako didn’t squirm under his gaze, he was the one who introduced her to the more political elements of British society after all. “Of course, but,” his voice drops a few decibels, “I hear their minder is keeping the prima locked away. They think she’ll defect if allowed a smoke break. She can only dance while she’s here.”

 

“Fine then, I won’t ask for her autograph.”

 

“Lilia Baranovskaya?” Bill slings an arm over her shoulders and ushers her into the now moving crowd. “Trust me, she’s the only one worth asking.”

 

~*~

 

Lilia Baranovskaya is the only one worth watching.

 

“I want to dance like her one day,” Minako whispers into the darkness.

 

 

~*~

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter notes [ here](http://electronique-brain.tumblr.com/post/155530750714/the-queen-is-dead-chapter-1-dasedandconfuzed).

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is [ here](http://electronique-brain.tumblr.com/).


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